Some two weeks after a form of jihad erupted over a Danish paper’s publication of cartoons offensive to some Muslims, Robert Wright, author of The Moral Animal, advises us on the op-ed page of The New York Times (which has not published the cartoons) that in order to avoid offending people of different cultures, moral self-censorship, not the First Amendment, should be our guide when deciding what we should or should not say in print.
This is a “tradition that has helped make America one of the most harmonious multiethnic and multireligious societies in the history of the world,” Wright claims, and goes on to admit that the “diversity of rage, and of underlying grievance [of Muslims worldwide] complicates the challenge. Apparently,” he adds, “refraining from obvious offense to religious sensibilities won’t be enough.”
No kidding! Raging extremist Muslims have set fire to embassies, Valentine’s Day cards, and Western chain restaurant franchises across a quarter of the globe during the last two weeks.
Wright claims that self-censorship shouldn’t be too much of a hardship, since
“[m]ost Americans tread lightly in discussing ethnicity and religion, and we do it so habitually that it’s nearly unconscious. Some might call this dishonest, and maybe it is,” he continues, “but it also holds moral truth: until you’ve walked in the shoes of other people, you can’t really grasp their frustrations and resentments, and you can’t really know what would and wouldn’t offend you if you were part of their crowd.”
On the same day that Wright suggests that discretion is the better part of valor (because we can’t ever know what will offend people), Gregory Rodriguez kindly reminds us that free speech isn’t so free anyway:
“If you say something intemperate, politically insensitive, sexist or otherwise offensive while at work, you risk both legal and social consequences. You could lose your job or, God forbid, your multimillion-dollar endorsement contract with a large soft-drink company. Or you could get a co-worker’s fist in your face.”
I’m not sure it’s such a great idea to make this information about “hostile-environment” codes so widely known. People might start to get upset if they realize that their jobs are actually at risk if they step over a line that no one has drawn clearly.
Who’s to judge that something is “intemperate” or “insensitive”?
Do we decide based on the most sensitive person or the least sensitive?
How many people have to raise an objection before your remark is deemed “intemperate”?
When the Danish cartoon story exploded in embargoes and then violent demonstrations across the Middle East and Asia a couple of weeks ago, the hot-button issue in the war on terrorism came to the fore. Many commentators have spoken and written passionately about defending freedom of expression, but as far as I know, none of them has been effective in pointing out that the freedom to speak our minds is the cornerstone of our way of life.
To my mind, the cartoon intifada is solid evidence that “they” don’t hate us because of our policies but indeed because our way of life threatens theirs.
